Homicide Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano are back for their seventh inning of the series, and this time they’re investigating a series of brutal murders in churches around the city.

If you like smart and creepy serial killer novels, this is one to check out. Its style is reminiscent of the film Se7en. And even though it’s midway through the series, you don’t need to have read the others to appreciate it (although I recommend the others too).

Impactis the last in the Outer Earth trilogy and my personal favourite of the three. The first book opens on a huge but claustrophobic space station that orbits earth and carries the last of humanity. A group of Tracers (couriers who deliver packages around the station) stumble across the plot of a madman intent on destroying the space station, and our hero Riley and her team do their best to foil the plans and protect everyone on board.

But with each entry in the series, their problems get bigger and darker and seemingly more insurmountable. And Impact ties it all together with the best and most explosive in the series. And on top of all the action, the books are filled with humour to cut the tension every now and then.

Nick Dunne’s wife disappears on the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary and no one can find her. She might be dead. In fact, most people think she is dead and that Nick killed her. The police think it too, and before long everyone else in town seems to think it.

But did he kill her or not? And if he did, how and why did he do it?

Gone Girl is a twisty psychological crime thriller with literary ambitions. It starts off slow, but after the first couple chapters it kicks in to high gear and the mystery holds you through until the end.

Mark Watney is stranded on Mars with no way to communicate with NASA (who think he’s dead), and he’s living in a hub designed to last a month with about half a year’s worth of food to sustain him. That doesn’t seem too bad except the next scheduled visit to Mars is years away, so unless Watney can figure out how to create his own food, protect his shelter, and contact earth, he’s going to die on Mars, all alone, in the freezing cold.

Written for the most part as a series of diary entries from Mars, the genius in this book lies in its premise and our hero’s constant feeling of peril. For everything Watney does right, something else goes wrong and another problem arises, and the novel carries on like that the whole way through, with Watney having to put out fire after fire after fire, both figuratively and literally. It’s the kind of book that doesn’t allow you to put it down because you want to know how he’ll escape.

Technically I read this at the end of 2015 but I thought I’d sneak it in anyway.

Strings is the story of Nina, a hooker at a mob-run brothel who has one final trick to turn before her Madam will set her free and allow her to return to a quiet life in Iowa. But her final customer is not the usual; there’s something disturbing with him (or it?) and she just wants to get out of there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long before she’s tied to the bed and looking death in the face. But can she survive through the torture and find a way to escape? That’s the main gist, although there’s some interesting subplots going on too with the Madam of Nina’s brothel and a driver, Ramon, who’s trying to run off with a suitcase of Mafia money.

Overall it’s a gruesome and disturbing horror with enough to satisfy the most depraved fans of the genre.

If you’re easily offended or squeamish, don’t waste your time.

On a side note, it’s not available to buy on Kindle at the moment but the author has assured me it will be back later in 2017, so mark it on your Amazon wish list and check back in a few months . . .(You can read my interview with author Allison M. Dickson here.)

First published in 1995 before iPhones were invented, this techno thriller is about a “smart” building run by computers.

But when a virus compromises the main system just before the building’s grand opening, the computer locks a group of people inside and begins killing the characters one by one in a series of inventive and gruesome ways.

It includes: introductions he’s written for other books, published essays, tributes to some of the best-loved crime authors from the last few decades, anecdotes from his career, insights into his journey as a writer, and much more. And as always with Block, every piece of writing sounds like your best friend telling you a story you never want to end.

Worth checking out if you’re a fan of Block or crime books in general.

Blinkis a psychology book about intuition: about how we make snap judgements and why a lot of the time it’s more effective than taking time to reach an informed decision.

As with all of Gladwell’s books, he takes us through an interesting subject without getting too complex with the information. This can sometimes be his downfall — he tends to skate over the surface of his theories and present them as unbreakable truths rather than delving too deeply into the alternatives that could show his ideas in a different light. But in spite of that, I always enjoy reading his work and I usually learn something along the way.

Just make sure, after you’re done, you do some independent research and come to your own conclusions.

I’ve lumped these two in together because I read them back-to-back and they’re by the same author — Jon Ronson — a journalist with an eye for the absurd.

The first book, The Psychopath Test, sees Ronson go on a journey to discover the roots of psychopathy, which, although a dark subject matter, is treated in Ronson’s typically light and humorous way, even as he’s face to face with genuine psychopaths (both the murderous and non-violent kind) and as he ambles his way through the world of psychopathology. And not only does he talk to prominent psychologists to get a better idea about the mindset of a psychopath, he also tracks down the man who created the original Psychopath Test — a list of indicators to help anyone spot a psychopath in your midst.

Overall it’s a quick read, full of comedic and dark insight, and offers a brief but interesting psychology course to its readers without the complexity of the issue bogging it down.

Ronson, after realising a Twitter bot is using his identity, is soon sucked into the world of public shaming, in which he interviews people who’ve had their lives ruined after posting offensive, insensitive or just plain stupid tweets or Facebook statuses. He examines the social media world of wolves and discusses the cycle of online outrage and “white-knighting” from certain sections of the internet. He manages to treat his subjects like three-dimensional people — broken, sad, apologetic — whilst never quite excusing their dumb actions either.

Neil Strauss is the infamous author of The Game, a book that lifted the lid on the pick-up artist community and helped teach millions of horny men about “negging” and “peacocking”. Since then, Strauss has picked up a sex addiction and admits at the beginning of this book that he finds it impossible (and almost illogical) to stay faithful to the love of his life, which leads him down a path of salvation through rehab, denial, and eventually plenty of orgies, porn star parties and a brief stint living as a polyamorous bachelor.

But when you look beyond the salacious and the provocative angle of the book, Strauss has a lot to say here about relationships and sexual dysfunction. I wouldn’t say I agree with everything, but a few sections gave me pause and had me re-evaluating the kind of husband and father I am, and if I could be doing better. It’s by no means groundbreaking, yet Strauss writes in such an engaging and honest way, that you’re sure to get something out of this book, even if it’s just entertainment or an inside look into a different, darker and more depraved world than you’re used to.

As someone who reads a lot of writing manuals, I feel this has way more in the tank than the usual. Harry Bingham runs through every major facet of writing and manages to offer enough advice and insight to please and teach both the laymen and the experts. I rarely find advice I haven’t read before. However, Bingham, who’s not only an author himself but also the owner of a writing consultancy firm, does well to offer up plenty of well-known and often-touted advice (such as Write what you know) but with extra depth than the usual.

Anyone looking to make it in this deadly publishing game should check this out and heed the advice given.

If that one helps you master your craft, this one helps you learn about the publishing industry as a whole and how to sell your novel. Not only does Bingham go through the process from start to finish, he also pulls back the curtain on the behind-the-scenes stuff and, in an unbiased way, reviews both the negatives and positives of mainstream publishing and the possible pitfalls that can flatline a career before it takes off.

If you’re searching for an agent or publisher, this is has enough advice to help level the playing field when you finally get into a position to negotiate with the higher-ups about your career and future income.

Resume Speed is a quick-paced novella about a man who, whilst on the run from something (or someone), drifts into a new town and restarts his life as a short-order cook.

This is straightforward enough, except Block weaves the paranoia and tension throughout, leaving the audience to ask what exactly our hero has done, and, more importantly: will it catch up with him? And the way Block writes his main character, you don’t want it to; you want everyone to leave this man alone to live his life, and that’s down to Block’s genius. He does a beautiful job of showing our hero integrating into a new town and improving the lives and love of those around him, with the slow-boil tension of who-knows-what creeping along under the surface; a deadly promise of things to come.

The ending, in some ways, lets it down; it’s a little abrupt, especially as I didn’t want to leave the characters just yet. I happily would have read another four-hundred-plus pages. But it’s the type of ending that makes you think, too, and long after the book’s closed.

My Sunshine Awayis a disturbing coming-of-age love story mixed in with a rape mystery, which the narrator (unreliable and suspicious as he is) decides he’s going to solve on behalf of the victim. That’s if he didn’t do it himself.

He was clearly in love with the victim and had the opportunity and motive, along with sexualised pictures he’d drawn of her, and many of the people in town think he’s guilty. But he’s adamant he didn’t do it.

And that sense of uncertainty around the narrator carries the mystery for most of the book — more so, in fact, than his half-hearted investigation — but underneath all of that, there’s a lot more going on than just a horrifying rape story: there’s drama and love and teenage confusion and the characters are fully-formed people you could imagine knowing in real life, all written in a forthright and yet at times lyrical prose that takes this a step above your usual mystery. It’s more of a literary exploration of teenage despair, unrequited love, and the darkness that resides in us all.

Either way, it’s worth reading: not so much for the mystery, but for the writing itself.

This is a well-written and informative memoir, even for someone who’s not a fan of Marilyn Manson’s music. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not really into memoirs; also, I’ve probably only heard one or two of Marilyn Manson’s songs before and know him more based on how he looks than his musical genius. But I still found the book interesting and read it in a day or two.

It chronicles Manson’s uprising to stardom and shows his rock-and-roll/punk-anarchist lifestyle in vivid detail, without censoring the disgusting parts. And although some of it feels a little repetitive at times (alcohol, drugs, fights and copious unprotected sex), Strauss does a good job of balancing it out with incisive details and a narrative that feels, at times, as if it’s a novel; a portrait of a character heading towards destruction.

If you’re trying to build better habits in your life — such as writing more often, or going to the gym, or smoking less — this book has an easy way to make it happen.

The premise is simple: start your habits stupidly small, like doing one press-up a day, and gradually build from there over the weeks and months until the habit is fully solidified in your brain. After all, it’s more beneficial to do three sit-ups a day, every day, for an entire year, than it is to do 50 sit-ups every now and then, at random moments throughout each month. And that’s the beauty of mini-habits: they work to make the habit permanent, so that the act of doing a sit-up (regardless of how many) is ingrained in you.

Once you go beyond that, you’re able to do 50 or 60 sit-ups a day, if that’s the goal, and you won’t feel any different than when you only did one or two a day.

Anyway, the book is only a short one but Guise goes into detail about his mini-habit theory and explains how and why it works, and the many aspects of daily life it can be applied to. I’ve used mini-habits for a long time now and it’s helped me integrate so many new positive habits into my life.

It’s written in Hunter’s typically honest and humorous way, and whether or not you’re a fan of Hitchcock is irrelevant. Hunter manages to keep you interested with funny anecdotes, and also offers plenty of commentary into the process of making a film, especially explaining the mutual respect as well as the constant battles on set between screenwriter and director.

I’m sure many of you have seen a film before and thought, What was the writer thinking? not realising, as in Hunter’s case with The Birds, that the writer had a completely different idea how to end the film, or open it, or work in the twist, but the director, who, as we know, is the main man in charge, took it upon himself to change everything, even to the detriment of the film; even if it meant carving out a large portion of logic and leaving loopholes everywhere. In Hunter’s experience with Hitchcock, a lot of the issues with the final version of The Birds came down to the director’s choices, and yet ultimately, as the writer, he’s the one who got all the blame for the stupid stuff.

Anyway, it’s a quick read and worth checking if you’re interested in films.

A humorous “teen” comedy about two best friends and a girl dying of cancer. It’s not as bleak as the title might suggest — nor is it a clichéd romcom that ends with Happily Ever After. If anything, the story is about friendship and love on a platonic level.

It isn’t your traditional YA, but it has plenty of laughs scattered throughout and enough edge and cleverness to appeal to both teenagers and adults alike.

There are plenty (nigh: infinite) manuals on how to write well. Or, at the very least, how to write competently. But most of these follow a similar pattern. They repeat a lot of the same information from book to book with just a tweak here and there.

This manual, however, has a slight twist. Instead of lecturing for pages about writing description, or about how to construct a great sentence or how to properly evoke emotion and fill in the landscape through colourful descriptions, it shows what you shouldn’t do. But not just that: the authors have written in a bunch of deliberately terrible scenes as a way to illustrate their points, and although it’s over the top at times, the authors do a good job of portraying the mistakes that a lot of amateur and even seasoned novelists make. It’s easy for other books to say Don’t overuse description, but that means little to the person reading it if they don’t know how much is too much. One man’s too much is five pages; another man’s is five sentences. Whereas, in this book, the authors start with the rule, then follow it up with a badly written piece of overdone description to drive home their point.

Based on a true-life train robbery committed in 19th century England, Crichton has taken the facts of that case and occasionally weaved them into the story — and at times outright thrown them away — in order to craft a taut, tense and plausible thriller centred around a train heist.

If you’re looking for historical accuracy, you’ll be disappointed. But as a thriller, it hits all the right notes. It’s the type of quick-paced book you can finish in one sitting.

Jack Sparks, an egotistical former drug-addict and much-loathed journalist, is dead.

That’s not a spoiler. He’s dead from the start, and The Last Days of Jack Sparks is “found material” showing what happened leading up to his death, ostensibly taken from a book Jack Sparks was writing about the supernatural: most notably, whether or not ghosts exist, which is what sends him down a disturbing and horrifying path towards his death.

I’m not usually into ghost stories, but the central mystery (whether or not a chilling YouTube clip is real or not) drew me in, and the rest of the spooky supernatural stuff is portrayed in a plausible way, without attempting to scare with shock tactics or cheap thrills. There’s a genuine sense of uneasiness which creeps through the pages and gets more ominous as the story progresses.

There are some who’ll find Jack Sparks truly unlikeable (and in places that seems to be the point), but if you can get past Sparks’ arrogance and apparent lack of care for anyone but himself, you’ll be rewarded with a humorous and clever book that alternates between mocking the self-indulgence of celebrities, and scaring the shit out of the readers.

Into The Wildis the true story of Chris McCandless, a young man with a seemingly comfortable and content life, who decided one day to get rid of his possessions and live off the land, which meant camping out in sub-zero temperatures and hunting for food. McCandless wasn’t scared to embrace the harsh environmental realities of a nomad.

Unfortunately, McCandless was soon found dead in the Alaskan wilderness, apparently too weak to summon help or catch any prey to keep him going, and with just an SOS note left behind to explain his situation. However, after conducting a series of interviews and compiling evidence through McCandless’s diary entries and other clippings, author Jon Krakauer has been able to authentically recreate the journey of McCandless from start to finish, along with showing a deep understanding into his mindset and what might cause someone to go off-grid like that.

It’s a tragic story, but an interesting one too. I’m sure plenty of people have considered just packing it all in and wandering off to a life of peace, but few have dared to try it.

This book will either frustrate you (when you consider McCandless’ naivety), or it will inspire you to make a change in your life. Either way, you should give it a shot.

The Firemanis the story of pregnant school nurse Harper Grayson, and her attempts to survive a virus called Dragonscale in the midst of an apocalypse. People are spontaneously combusting everywhere, and the ones who don’t go into flames are shot dead by the roving murderous street crews.

So when Harper contracts the deadly virus, she knows she doesn’t have long left. But, with the help of a man known as The Fireman, she’s soon swept up into a secret society of the infected that have learned how to channel their Dragonscale through prayer and singing, thereby stopping the suicidal fireball effects. The group are holed up in an abandoned summer camp, but with Harper new on the scene it’s not long before the relationship dynamics are tested and the outside world tracks them down to their spot, and that’s when sparks fly and no one’s safe from death. It’s coming after them all.

The book, for a start, is gargantuan. In scope and size, it’s along the lines of Stephen King’s novel, The Stand. And just like that book, there are moments where it drags, or parts that slow down the read, but overall it’s worth the slog. The characters are all likeable and well rounded, and the concept behind the virus is fleshed out in a believable and interesting manner.

Anyway, put aside a few weeks for this one and push your way through it.

Earlier in the year, after seeing Don Winslow tweet on numerous occasions about The Second Life of Nick Manson, I took the plunge and bought it. It didn’t blow me away but I enjoyed it enough to check out more of Hamilton’s work, and I’m glad I did. The Lock Artistwas in my top 5 reads of 2016.

It’s the story of Michael, the Miracle Boy, who suffers through a tragic series of events, which culminates in him never speaking again. He’s a mute with a dark past. But one day he learns how to crack locks and soon masters it, practicing his newfound skill on every lock he can find, until, through a chance connection, he becomes embroiled in the world of crime as a safecracker. He becomes one of the best in the business. He just doesn’t talk.

The story alternates between a present-day heist and the past that led up to his current situation. It’s essentially a coming-of-age love story wrapped in a heist novel. It’s full of heart and scope and drama, but with enough thriller elements to please the most ardent crime fan.

In short: check this one out. It’s up there with some of my favourites.